ASSIGNMENT 1

For the Final Exam for this course, you will be expected to assess the diet of a real, living Human,
and to provide advice for specific changes to the diet to improve the long-term nutritional status of
the individual. Obviously, before you can assess this person's diet, you must first determine what
their current diet is. I recommend that you track your own diet, but you are free to track the diet
of whomever you wish.
&nbsp &nbsp Your first “quiz” is designed to provide these data, and nothing
more. You are not expected to start the actual final paper today. The assessment and recommendations
in the final paper (when you write it later) will require you to apply virtually everything you are
expected to learn from this course [and if you have already learned it without this course, why are
you taking this course rather than trying to ‘test out’ of it?] to an actual case
study, which is why the paper is called “final exam” rather than “term paper”
although it should look like a term paper, complete with citations in MLA format. By collecting the
diet data at the beginning of the semester, and using the software to convert “food” to
“nutrients” this early, you will have a picture of the diet you are studying so you can
apply what you learn as you learn it to a real, live Human creature!&nbsp &nbsp While deciding whose diet you want to study, remember that you will have to be able
to collect detailed food intake information from this person (and you are the easiest person to get
accurate data from).
You should know that, just like FERPA protects data on your performance in this course (I can
disclose this information to you personally and to the registrar but no one else), HIPAA regulations
protect medical information including these data, your assessment, and your recommendations.
HIPAA requires that you do not disclose the patient's identity in any documents you create for
this course. In order for me to grade the documents you are to create, I will need to know the age,
sex, height, weight, and only that health history which is directly relevant to your
recommendations for the person whose diet you are discussing.
If you are unclear as to what HIPAA allows you to disclose see the
link to U.S. Department of Health &amp Human Services website,
and click on 'Understanding HIPAA Privacy.' [Even if you are taking this course from somewhere other
than the United States, the U.S. regulations apply because your reports will be submitted into the
U.S., to a “covered entity,” which can be considered to be engaged in research.]
&nbsp &nbsp You are to collect a list of total food intake [food item, quantity usually as volume
(cups, ounces)] for three (3) consecutive days. The Nursing version of this course requires 7 days
data because 7 days is statistically more sound than 3 days.
The data are to be grouped by day, then by meal [Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks]:
&nbsp ·Breakfast is considered to be a meal consumed after
arising and before beginning the day's activities. It includes second breakfast, but not elevenses,
if your patient is a Hobbit (from J.R.R.R. Tolkien).
&nbsp ·Lunch is considered to be the midday meal, even if it's
only a snack.
&nbsp ·Dinner is considered to be the evening meal (dinner,
supper, or both).
&nbsp ·Snacks is considered to include all snacks [mid-morning,
elevenses, mid-afternoon, high tea, cocktail hour, evening, late-night, bedtime, midnight
refrigerator raid, …].

&nbsp &nbsp These data are to be entered into the Diet Analysis Plus 9.0 software,
which I “required” along with the recommended textbook. If you did not buy the recommended
text bundled with Diet Analysis Plus 9.0, the software CD-ROM can be purchased separately
[ISBN-13: 9780495387657] from CENGAGE brain dot
com.
An older edition of the software required that you enter no more than one
days data, then leave the data entry screen; then return to enter the next days data.
The Diet Analysis Plus software will convert “food” to nutrients, and compare
the daily averages to the recommended daily average intake values [as a percent]. This will save you
a huge amount of research and frustration trying to find these conversions yourself.
You could use MyPyramid on the
link to USDA's My Pyramid website, then click on
“MyPyramid Tracker”, but it allows only one day's data, so you will have to average the
three days manually.
&nbsp Diet Analysis Plus does allow you to “create a food” or even a recipe. To create a
food you will have to type in the name of the food, and all of the information off the nutrition
facts label. I recommend (but do not require) that you create at least one food, just to get
practice reading Nutrition Facts labels.
&nbsp For now [quiz 1] you are to print out the Diet Analysis Plus
results, which can be done by:
&nbsp &nbsp 1) select Print Reports from the buttons at the top, then Custom Average Reports.
&nbsp &nbsp 2) Follow the steps across the top: step 1 choose a start date, step 2 choose an end
date (to include all 7 days of data); step 3 choose the reports to average [Profile DRI Goals and
Intake vs Goals must be checked (and all other reports must be unchecked); step 4 choose meals, check
all four;
&nbsp &nbsp 3) then click on the Print Custom Average button on the lower right - the selected
reports will display.
&nbsp &nbsp 4) Finally from the file drop-down menu (far upper left) click on print.
(You should get a “print dialog” which gives you an option to “print to
file”. This will provide an electronic copy which can be attached to your email answer to this
quiz.)
If you ‘mis-place’ your copy of the printed results, you will need to remember the
date range of your data in order to reprint the reports later [while you are working on your final
paper, which should not be until toward the end of the semester].
&nbsp &nbsp 5) For Quiz 1, if you printed a hard copy of the report, I need to see
only a summary of the Profile DRI Goals &amp Intake vs Goals reports listing those
nutrients which you consider to be excessively low and excessively high (with the percent numbers
from the bar graphs included but not the bar graphs). ‘Excessively low and excessively
high’ refers to the “typical physiological response of an organism to nutrient intake”
from the lecture on Wellness.
&nbsp For your own interest, you may display or print any of the reports that sound interesting
to you.
&nbsp Later, you will assess adequacy of the patient's diet as your final exam for this
course. The details of this assessment are [or will be] at the link to the final exam on the course
outline. In brief, the assessment will examine caloric balance and nutritional value. You will be
expected to identify potential problems both with insufficient nutrient intake and with excessive
nutrient intake. From the identified problems, you will select the two or three which you consider to
be the most serious, and explain why you chose the ones you chose. Then you will make specific
recommendations for the patient to correct these two or three problems, and explain why you chose
to correct them as you did. Remember, I have a poorly concealed bias toward
getting nutrients from Food (from recently living plants and animals).

Obviously, it will take 3 days to collect 3 days worth of data. Therefore, Quiz 1 will not
be due until you have had time to collect and enter three days worth of data.
The “question” for Quiz 1 is “Collect 3 days worth of diet data
for an actual Human individual.”